The Equilibrium Real Funds Rate: Past, Present and Future

Transcription

1 The Equilibrium Real Funds Rate: Past, Present and Future James D. Hamilton University of California at San Diego and NBER Ethan S. Harris Bank of America Merrill Lynch Jan Hatzius Goldman Sachs Kenneth D. West University of Wisconsin and NBER March 1, 1 We thank Jari Stehn and David Mericle for extensive help with the modeling work in Section 6. We also thank Chris Mischaikow, Alex Verbny, Alex Lin and Lisa Berlin for assistance with data and charts and for helpful comments and discussions. We also benefited from comments on an earlier draft of this paper by Mike Feroli, Peter Hooper, Anil Kashyap, Rick Mishkin, Kim Schoenholtz, and Amir Sufi. West thanks the National Science Foundation for financial support.

2 ABSTRACT We examine the behavior, determinants, and implications of the equilibrium level of the real federal funds rate, defined as the rate consistent with full employment and stable inflation in the medium term. We draw three main conclusions. First, the uncertainty around the equilibrium rate is large, and its relationship with trend GDP growth much more tenuous than widely believed. Our narrative and econometric analysis using cross-country data and going back to the 19th Century supports a wide range of plausible central estimates for the current level of the equilibrium rate, from a little over % to the pre-crisis consensus of %. Second, despite this uncertainty, we are skeptical of the secular stagnation view that the equilibrium rate will remain near zero for many years to come. The evidence for secular stagnation before the 8 crisis is weak, and the disappointing post-8 recovery is better explained by protracted but ultimately temporary headwinds from the housing supply overhang, household and bank deleveraging, and fiscal retrenchment. Once these headwinds had abated by early 1, US growth did in fact accelerate to a pace well above potential. Third, the uncertainty around the equilibrium rate argues for more inertial monetary policy than implied by standard versions of the Taylor rule. Our simulations using the Fed staff s FRB/US model show that explicit recognition of this uncertainty results in a later but steeper normalization path for the funds rate compared with the median dot in the FOMC s Summary of Economic Projections. 1

3 1. Introduction What is the steady-state value of the real federal funds rate? Is there a new neutral, with a low equilibrium value for the foreseeable future? As this paper goes to press, a consensus seems to be building that the answer to the second question is yes. Starting in 1 FOMC members have been releasing their own estimates of the longer run nominal rate in the now somewhat infamous dot plot. As Exhibit 1.1 shows, the longer run projection for PCE inflation has remained steady at.%, but longer run projections for both the GDP and the nominal funds rate projections have dropped bp. The implied equilibrium real rate has fallen from.% to 1.7% and the current range among members extends from 1. to.%. Indeed, going back to January 1, the first FOMC projections for the longer run funds rate had a median of.%, suggesting an equilibrium real rate of.%. Forecasters at the CBO, OMB, Social Security Administration and other longer term official forecasts show a similar cut in the assumed equilibrium rate, typically from % to 1.%. The consensus outside official circles points to an even lower equilibrium rate. A hot topic of discussion in the past year or so is whether the U.S. has drifted into secular stagnation, a period of chronically low equilibrium rates due to a persistent weak demand for capital, rising propensity to save and lower trend growth in the economy (see Summers (13b,1)). A similar view holds that there is a "new neutral" for the funds rate of close to zero in real terms (see McCulley (3) and Clarida (1)). The markets seem to agree. As this goes to press, the bond market is pricing in a peak nominal funds rate of less than ½% (see Misra (1)). The view that the equilibrium rate is related to trend growth is long standing. For example, in Taylor's (1993) seminal paper the equilibrium rate the real funds rate consistent with full employment and stable inflation was assumed to be %. Why %? Because it was close to the assumed steady state growth rate of.% which, as Taylor noted at the time, was the average growth rate from 198:1 to 199:3. Perhaps the best known paper to formally estimate a time-varying equilibrium rate is Laubach and Williams (3), which makes trend growth the central determinant of the equilibrium rate. A tight link between the equilibrium rate and growth is common in theoretical models. The Ramsey model relates the safe real rate to a representative consumer s discount factor and expected consumption growth. So, too, does the baseline New Keynesian model, whose generalization is central to much policy and academic work. Thus these familiar models tie the equilibrium rate to the trend rate of growth in consumption and thus the economy. In those models, shifts in trend growth will shift the equilibrium rate. In more elaborate models, shifts in the level of uncertainty or other model forces can also shift the equilibrium rate. Empirical estimates of the New Keynesian models such as Barsky et al. (1) and Curdia et al. (1) find considerable variation in the natural rate of interest. In other words, the equilibrium rate may be time varying. Such time variation is at the forefront of the policy debate.

4 In this paper, we address the question of a new neutral by examining the experience from a large number of countries, though focusing on the U.S. In Section we describe the data and procedures that we will use to construct the ex-ante real rates used in our analysis. These go back as far as two centuries for some countries, and also include more detailed data on the more recent experience of OECD economies. We also note the strategy we often use to make empirical statements about the equilibrium rate: for the most part we will look to averages or moving averages of our measures of real rates; at no point will we estimate a structural model. Section 3 summarizes and interprets some of the existing theoretical and empirical work and highlights the theoretical basis for anticipating a relation between the equilibrium real rate and the trend growth rate. In this and the next section, we look to moving averages as (noisy) measures of the equilibrium rate and the trend growth rate. Using both long time-series observations for the United States as well as the experience across OECD countries since 197, we investigate the relation between safe real rates and trend output growth. We uncover some evidence that higher trend growth rates are associated with higher average real rates. However, that finding is sensitive to the particular sample of data that is used. And even for the samples with a positive relation, the correlation between growth and average rates is modest. We conclude that factors in addition to changes in the trend growth rate are central to explaining why the equilibrium real rate changes over time. In Section we provide a narrative history of determinants of the real rate in the U.S. trying to identify the main factors that may have moved the equilibrium rate over time. We conclude that changes over time in personal discount rates, financial regulation, trends in inflation, bubbles and cyclical headwinds have had important effects on the real rate observed on average over any given decade. We discuss the secular stagnation hypothesis in detail. On balance, we find it unpersuasive, arguing that it probably confuses a delayed recovery with chronically weak aggregate demand. Our analysis suggests that the current cycle could be similar to the last two, with a delayed normalization of both the economy and the funds rate. Our narrative approach suggests the equilibrium rate may have fallen, but probably only slightly. Presumptively lower trend growth implies an equilibrium rate below the % average that has recently prevailed, perhaps somewhere in the 1% to % range. In Section we perform some statistical analysis of the long-run U.S. data and find, consistent with our narrative history as well as with empirical results found by other researchers in postwar datasets, that we can reject the hypothesis that the real interest rate converges over time to some fixed constant. We do find a relation that appears to be stable. The U.S. real rate is cointegrated with a measure that is similar to the median of a 3-year-average of real rates around the world. When the U.S. rate is below that long-run world rate (as it is as of the beginning of 1), we could have some confidence that the U.S. rate is going to rise, consistent with the conclusion from our narrative analysis in Section. The model forecasts the U.S. and world long-run real rate settling down at a value around a half a percent within about three years. However, because the world rate itself is also nonstationary with no clear tendency to revert to a fixed mean, the uncertainty associated with this forecast grows larger the farther we try to look into the future. 3

5 Indeed, the confidence interval two years ahead is wide, from 1 to percentage points wide depending how far out one forecasts. This confidence interval only partially overlaps with Section s narrative range of 1%-%. Both ranges include the FOMC forecast implied by the numbers in Exhibit 1.1. We do not attempt to formally reconcile our two ranges. Rather, we conclude that the U.S. real rate will rise but that it is very hard for anyone to predict what the average value might turn out to be over the next decade. More generally, the picture that emerges from our analysis is that the determinants of the equilibrium rate are manifold and time varying. We are skeptical of analysis that puts growth of actual or potential output at the center of real interest rate determination. The link with growth is weak. Historically, that link seems to have been buried by effects from factors listed above such as regulation and bubbles. We conclude from both formal and descriptive analysis that reasonable forecasts for the equilibrium rate will come with large confidence intervals. We close the paper in Section 6 by considering the policy implications of uncertainty about the equilibrium rate. Orphanides and Williams (, 6, 7) have noted that if the Fed does not have a good estimate of what the equilibrium real rate should be, it may be preferable to put more inertia into policy than otherwise. We use simulations of the FRB/US model to gauge the relevance of this concern in the current setting. We conclude that, given that we do not know the equilibrium real rate, there may be benefits to waiting to raise the nominal rate until we actually see some evidence of labor market pressure and increases in inflation. Relative to the shallow glide path for the funds rate that has featured prominently in recent Fed communications, our findings suggest that the funds rate should start to rise later but provided the recovery does gather pace and inflation picks up somewhat more steeply. To conclude, the evidence suggests to us that the secular stagnationists are overly pessimistic. We think the long-run equilibrium U.S. real interest rate remains significantly positive, and forecasts that the real rate will remain stuck at or below zero for the next decade appear unwarranted. But we find little basis in the data for stating with confidence exactly what the value of the equilibrium real rate is going to be. In this respect our policy recommendation shares some common ground with the stagnationists it pays for the Fed to be cautious about raising the nominal interest rate in the current environment until we see more evidence from the behavior of the economy and inflation that such increases are clearly warranted.. The real interest rate across countries and across time Our focus is on the behavior of the real interest rate, defined as the nominal short-term policy rate minus expected inflation. The latter is of course not measured directly, and we follow the common approach in the literature of inferring expected inflation from the forecast of an autoregressive model fit to inflation. However, we differ from most previous studies in that we allow the coefficients of our inflation-forecasting relations to vary over time. We will be making use of both a very long annual data

6 set going back up to two centuries as well as a quarterly data set available for more recent data. The countries we will be examining are listed in Exhibit.1. In this section we describe these data and our estimates of real interest rates. A. A very long-run annual data set Our long-run analysis is based on annual data going as far back as 18 for 17 different countries. Where available we used the discount rate set by the central bank as of the end of each year. For the Bank of England this gives us a series going all the way back to 181, while for the U.S. we spliced together values for commercial paper rates over , the Federal Reserve discount rate over , and the average fed funds rate during the last month of the year from 19 to present. 1 Our interest rate series for these two countries are plotted in the top row of Exhibit. and for 1 other countries in the panels of Exhibit.3. The U.S. nominal rate shows a broad tendency to decline through World War II, rise sharply until 198, and decline again since. The same broad trends are also seen in most other countries. However, there are also dramatic differences across countries as well, such as the sharp spike in rates in Finland and Germany following World War I. We also assembled estimates of the overall price level for each country. For the U.S., we felt the best measure for recent data is the GDP deflator which is available since 199. We used an estimate of consumer prices for earlier U.S. data and all other countries. The annual inflation rates are plotted in the second row of Exhibit. for the U.S. and U.K. and for 1 other countries in the panels of Exhibit.. There is no clear trend in inflation for any country prior to World War I, suggesting that the downward trend in nominal rates prior to that should be interpreted as a downward trend in the real rate. Inflation rose sharply in most countries after both world wars, with hyperinflations in Germany and Finland following World War I and Japan and Italy after World War II. But the postwar spike in inflation was in every case much bigger than the rise in nominal interest rates. How much of the variation in inflation would have been reasonable to anticipate ex ante? Barsky (1987) argued that U.S. inflation was much less predictable in the 19 th century than it became later in the th century. Consider for example using a first-order autoregression to predict the inflation rate in country n for year t: π = c + φ π + ε (.1) nt n n n, t 1 nt To allow for variation over time in inflation persistence, we estimated equation (.1) by ordinary least squares using a sample of thirty years of data ending in each year T. The resulting estimates of the persistence of inflation for country n in year T, ɵ φ nt, are plotted as a function of T for the U.S. and U.K. in 1 Values of the 3 separate U.S. series are very close to each other at the dates at which they were spliced together. Our data set is largely identical to Hatzius et. al (1) and mainly comes from the Global Financial Data Inc. database, supplemented with information from Haver Analytics. In most cases, the short-term interest rate series is a central bank discount rate (known as bank rate in UK parlance) or an overnight cash or repo rate. When more than one series is used for the same country because of changes over time in definitions and market structure, we splice the series using the discount rate as the basis.

7 row 3 of Exhibit. and for other countries in the panels of Exhibit.. There is indeed little persistence in realized inflation for most countries during the 19 th century, implying that changes in the nominal rate should be viewed as changes in the ex-ante real rate. However, by World War I there is a fair amount of persistence in most countries, suggesting that at least some degree of postwar inflation should have been anticipated at the time. People knew there had been a war and that last year there had been significant inflation. To maintain that they nevertheless anticipated stable prices for the following year in such a setting seems an unlikely hypothesis. In the last row of Exhibit. and the panels in Exhibit.6 we plot the value for the ex-ante real interest rate that is implied by the above forecasting model, that is, we plot r = i cɵ ɵ nt φ π (.) nt nt nt n, t where c ɵ nt and ɵ φ nt are the estimated intercept and slope for a regression estimated using 3 years of data for that country ending at date t. 3 These suggest that ex-ante real rates were typically higher in the 19 th century than they have been over the last half century. For example, a real rate above % was fairly often observed in the United States prior to 19 but has been much less common since 196. There also are strongly negative real rates for almost all countries during both world wars, as well as negative real rates over the last few years. Although one could arrive at different estimates of the ex-ante real rate using a different specification of expected inflation, the above broad conclusions are fundamentally tied to what we see in the raw interest rate and inflation data and would be unlikely to be changed under any reasonable specification of inflation expectations. B. Postwar quarterly data We will also be making use of more recent, higher frequency data. For the U.S. we use the average fed funds rate over the last month of the quarter for the measure of the policy rate (available since 19:3) and times the log difference of the GDP deflator (available since 197:1) as our series for inflation. For other countries we use the short-term interest rate (generally 3-month LIBOR or Eurocurrency rates) and the GDP deflator, as reported by the IMF World Economic Outlook and the OECD Economic Outlook database. Sample periods for which our constructed real rates are available vary across countries, as indicated in column () in Exhibit.1. For all countries but the U.S., the quarterly data end in 13:. For quarterly data we replaced the forecasting equation (.1) with a fourth-order autoregression: π = + φ π + φ π + φ π + φ π + ε (.3) nt cn n1 n, t 1 n n, t n3 n, t 3 n n, t nt. Note that using four quarterly lags in (.3) corresponds to the single lag in (.1) using annual data in each case the forecast is based on what was observed over the previous year. Because of the limited 3 Note that the vertical scales are different for different countries. 6

8 sample we begin the estimation using only observations and then let the number of observations grow until we get to 8. For example, our first price-level observation for the U.S. is the value of the GDP deflator for 197:1. Our first available estimate of expected inflation, E, 198:1 π US,198: thus comes from the coefficients estimated on a sample estimated for t = 198: to 198:1, from which we get the 198:1 real interest rate from r,198:1 = i,198:1 E 198:1 π,198:. We then add one more observation US US US (without dropping the initial data point) to infer the 198: real interest rate using a sample of 1 observations and the 198:3 real rate using observations. Once we get past 1968:1, we start to drop the observation at the start of the previous sample so that each estimate from then on uses a -year sample. Our series for the real interest rate constructed from annual and quarterly U.S. data align quite closely (see Exhibit.7). We also see from Exhibit.8 that our quarterly series for expected inflation aligns quite well with the subsequent realized inflation, with a correlation of.9. Exhibit.9 plots the postwar U.S. series for nominal and real interest rates. Exhibit.1 presents some summary statistics for the U.S. The use of rolling regressions means that one could in principle have rather different means for inflation and expected inflation; in fact the two are quite similar. Use of rolling regressions also means that expected inflation need not be less variable than actual inflation. But our series for expected inflation is indeed less variable. C. Real rate vs. equilibrium rate We close with a note on terminology. A prominent monetary policy maker (Ferguson (, p)) once complained about the multiplicity of terms for the equilibrium real interest rate: Economists famously cannot agree on much. In this case, we cannot even agree on the name of the benchmark concept that I have just described. The real interest rate consistent with the eventual full utilization of resources has been called the equilibrium real federal funds rate, the natural rate of interest, and the neutral real rate. I prefer the first name, the equilibrium real federal funds rate, because, by using the word equilibrium, it reminds us that it is a concept related to the clearing of markets. We follow Ferguson and use equilibrium. As well, we substitute safe rate or policy rate for federal funds rate when we reference data from outside the U.S. or from distant dates in the U.S. To state the obvious, the equilibrium real federal funds rate is distinct from the equilibrium real or nominal rate of return on business capital, on equities, on long term government debt, or on short or long term In preliminary work, we also experimented with keeping the window size fixed at quarters through the whole sample. This led to a very similar series; the correlation was.98 between the expected inflation series with a quarter window and the equation (.3) version that we actually used. 7

9 consumer or corporate debt, though of course those returns are related to the equilibrium real federal funds rate. This notion of an equilibrium real rate is a rate that is consistent, on average, with output at potential and stable inflation. Of course, over the cycle, there may be time variation in the rate that sets output at potential or inflation at target. In much of our discussion we will be looking at averages over a cycle or longer moving averages as giving us one measure of the equilibrium rate, while acknowledging that such empirical constructs are at best a noisy indicator of the theoretical construct. 3. The real rate and aggregate growth What could account for the dramatic changes over time in real rates seen in the long term data in Exhibits. and.6 or the shorter recent sample in Exhibit.7? Much scholarly and blog discussion has tied interest rates to growth in output or potential output. This is central to the much cited paper by Laubach and Williams (3). It is also central to discussions of secular stagnation. Gordon (1, 1) has argued that the trend rate of growth will be lower, which, given a presumed link between real rates and growth, suggests lower real rates. Summers (13a) argues that in the near term, interest rates might have to be negative if output is to be at potential. This section considers the link between the real rate and aggregate growth. In section 3A we review a standard theoretical reason for the real rate to be tied to consumption and output growth. In section 3B, we review existing evidence suggesting that, historically, the link between the real rate and consumption growth is weak. We then present new evidence of a weak link to output growth using US (section 3C) and cross-country (section 3D) data. Finally, section 3E summarizes the empirical results in sections 3C and 3D. 3A. Growth and the real rate of interest in the New Keynesian model A basic building block in macro models used in scholarly and policy work is one that links real interest rates with consumption. We do not exploit that relationship in our quantitative work. But we do think it necessary to both motivate the relationship and, in the next section 3B, explain why we did not think it productive to make such a relationship a key part of our empirical work. We do so in the context of the basic New Keynesian model, in part so that we can also briefly link the equilibrium rate that is our focus to the natural rate of New Keynesian models. In New Keynesian models, the basic building block referenced in the previous paragraph is a dynamic IS equation that relates the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution in consumption to the real interest rate. We exposit this relationship in its simplest and very familiar form. Using a different approach, Leduc and Rudebusch (1) also conclude the link in the U.S. is weak. 8

11 Rearrange (3.) so that ct is on the left. Using the definition of rt, c t = E tc t+1 (it Etπt+1 ρ). (3.) Next, in the baseline New Keynesian model, consumption = output, (3.6) and in all New Keynesian models, baseline or not, output can deviate from the flexible price equilibrium. Let y n t = potential output = flexible price output, (3.7) y t = c t y n t = output gap = deviation from flexible price equilibrium. Then (3.) can be written yt = Etyt+1 [it Etπt+1 rn t], (3.8) r n t ρ + αetδy n t+1 = natural rate of interest. (3.9) Equation () in Laubach and Williams (3) corresponds to our equation (3.9), with a shock added on by Laubach and Williams. The natural rate of interest has normative properties; it may be desirable for the Fed to set the expected short rate to the natural rate (see Galí (8)). But the empirical counterpart is model dependent (see below). If the steady state, or average, value of the output gap is zero, then in this baseline model the average value of the real interest rate (3.) and the natural rate (3.9) are the same. But once one departs from the baseline model there may no longer be a simple connection between (1) growth of actual or potential output and () the real rate or the natural rate of interest. Expression (3.9) was derived assuming that consumption = output. That may be a fine simplification in some contexts but perhaps not here. The theoretical implications if consumption output are simply stated when the only departure from the baseline model is to allow two kinds of goods, one of which is imported. Then Clarida et al. (, p89) conclude that when, as well, α 1, the natural rate of interest is a weighted 1

12 sum of the growth of potential output in (1) the home country, and () the rest of the world, with the weight on rest of world proportional to the share of imported goods in consumption. r n t ρ + ω 1E tδy n t+1 + ω E tδy * t+1, (3.1) where Δy * t+1 is the growth rate of potential in the rest of the world and ω1 and ω are parameters that depend on the intertemporal elasticity α and the share of imported goods in consumption. In the U.S., an adjustment of imported goods would likely be quantitatively small. The point is that (3.9) holds only in very special circumstances. Adjustments for other departures, such as fixed capital and wage and price markup shocks, come in various forms, and are quantitatively substantial. See Barsky et al. (1), for example. Hence the New Keynesian model does not give a strong a priori reason for a tight short-run relation between the real rate or the natural rate on the one hand and growth of potential or actual output on the other. 3B. Mean consumption growth and the equilibrium rate The New Keynesian model does, however, provide an a priori reason for a tight link between the real rate and consumption growth, in the form of Equation (3.): this equation does require that utility be of the form (3.) but is agnostic about the presence or absence of capital, imports, wage and price shocks, etc. And equation (3.) has some intuitively appealing implications. Higher uncertainty about either infla]on or consump]on growth (as indexed by the variance terms) lowers the safe real rate. This is consistent with stories about flight to safety. The more one discounts the future (higher δ) the higher the safe real rate, which again makes sense if you are very impatient, a high return is what makes you cut back on consumption today so that you can consume tomorrow. Unfortunately, a huge literature has documented that (3.) does not work well empirically. See Kocherlakota (1996) and Mehra and Prescott (3) for surveys. Given our topic, the most salient failure of the model relates to its implications for the average or equilibrium level of the real rate. The second order terms are small compared to the other terms (see, for example, Table 1 in Kocherlakota (1996)). So for quantitative purposes ignore them for the moment, setting ρ δ. Expressing things at annual rates: average per capita consumption growth is about.; we generally put annual discount rates at something like δ=.. With α=1 (log utility), that implies an average value of the safe rate of.6 an implausibly high value. Since Weil (1989), the fact that this widely used model implies an implausibly high risk free rate is called the risk free rate puzzle. 11

13 The huge literature referenced in the previous paragraph has examined various solutions to the puzzle. These efforts include among others varying the discount factor δ, varying risk aversion α, varying the utility function, and dropping the representative agent/complete markets paradigm. In New Keynesian models rich enough to be used quantitatively in monetary policy analysis, there usually is a representative agent, the discount factor and risk aversion are generally similar to what is above, but the utility function often incorporates what is called habit persistence. It is our reading that habit persistence does not deliver a reasonable value for the equilibrium rate, though the evidence is a bit mixed. Habit can be modeled as internal or external. Internal persistence means utility this period depends on consumption this period relative to one s own consumption in the previous period. Internal habit is used in the influential Smets and Wouters (3) or Christiano et al. () models. External persistence means one s consumption this period is compared instead to aggregate consumption the previous period. External habit appears in papers such as de Paoli and Zabczyk (13). In either case, let Xt = habit level of consumption, (3.11) U(C t-x t ) = (C t-x t ) 1-α /(1-α), α>. Then X t varies either with one s own consumption (internal habit) or aggregate consumption (external habit). Dennis (9, equations (6), (7), (11) and (1)) supplies the first order analogues to (3.3) when utility is (a) of the form (3.11), or (b) when habit is multiplicative rather than additive. It follows from Dennis s expressions that neither internal nor external habit substantially affects the mean level of the safe rate when parameters are varied within the plausible range. Specifically, for additive habit, such as in (3.11) above, it follows analytically from Dennis s (11) and (1) that variation in habit has no effect on the mean safe rate. For multiplicative habit we have solved numerically for a range of plausible parameters and find habit has little effect on the mean rate. (Dennis s expressions are log linearized around a zero growth steady state. We have derived the log linearization in the presence of nonzero growth in one case (additive external habit), and the conclusion still holds.) Campbell and Cochrane (1999) let conditional second moments vary over time. They assume that the conditional variance of what they call surplus consumption rises as consumption C t approaches habit X t. They parameterize this in a way that delivers an equilibrium real rate that is indeed plausibly low on average. The model, however, implies counterfactual relations between nominal and real rates (Canzoneri et al. (7)). Hence our review of existing literature leads us to conclude that it is unlikely to be productive to focus on consumption when modeling the real rate, despite the strong theoretical presumption of a link between consumption growth and the real rate. The remaining parts of this section focus on GDP growth instead. 3C. Output growth and the real rate in the U.S. 1

14 There are theoretical reasons to expect a long-run relation between the real rate and GDP growth. In a model with balanced growth, consumption will, in the long run, grow at the same rate as output and potential output. Thus the combination of the intertemporal condition (3.) and balanced growth means that over long periods of time, the average short real rate will be higher when the growth rate of output is higher and lower when output growth is lower. Perhaps there is a clear long-run relationship between output and the real rate, despite the weak evidence of such a relationship between consumption and the real rate. In this section we use our long-run U.S. dataset to investigate the correlation, over business cycles or over 1 year averages, between GDP growth and real rates. Our focus is on the sign of the correlation between average GDP growth and average real rates. We do not attempt to rationalize or interpret magnitudes. We generally refer to average real rate rather than equilibrium real rate. But of course our view is that we are taking averages over a long enough period that the average rate will closely track the equilibrium rate. Real rate data were described in Section. We now describe our output data. Our U.S. GDP data runs from 1869 to the present. Balke and Gordon (1989) is the source for , FRED the source for 199-present. Quarterly dates of business cycle peaks are from NBER. When we analyze annual data, quarterly turning points given by NBER were assigned to calendar years using Zarnowitz (1997, pp73-33). Zarnowitz s work precedes the 1 and 7 peaks so we assigned those annual dates ourselves. When, for robustness, we briefly experiment with potential output instead of GDP, the CBO is our source. As just noted, we focus on the sign of the correlation between average GDP growth and average real rates. We find that this sign is sensitive to sample, changing sign when one or two data points are removed. We did not decide ex-ante which data points to remove. Rather, we inspected plots presented below and noted outliers whose removal might change the sign of the correlation. Ex-post, one might be able to present arguments for focusing on samples that yield a positive correlation, and thus are consistent with the positive relation suggested by theory. But one who does not come to the data with a prior of such a relation could instead conclude that there is little evidence of a positive relation. Peak to peak results Peak to peak results are in Exhibits Our baseline set of data points for the peak to peak analysis are the 7 (quarterly) or 9 (annual) pairs of (GDP growth, r) averages presented in Exhibit 3.1. Here is an illustration of how we calculated peak to peak numbers. In our quarterly data, the last two peaks are 1:1 and 7:. Our 7: values are. for GDP growth and. for the real interest rate. Here,. is average GDP growth over the 7 quarters from 1: (that is, beginning with the quarter following the previous peak) through 7:, with. the corresponding value for the real rate. Let us begin with quarterly data (Exhibit 3., and rows (1)-() in Exhibit 3.). A glance at the scatterplot Exhibit 3. suggests the following. First, the correlation between average GDP growth and 13

15 the average real rate is negative, at -. it so happens. (See line (1), column (6) of Exhibit 3.. That exhibit reports this and other peak-to-peak correlations that we present here in the text.) Second, the negative correlation is driven by 1981:3. If we drop that observation which, after all, reflects a cycle lasting barely more than a year (198:-1981:3), and is sometimes considered part of one long downturn (e.g., Mulligan (9) and Angry Bear (9), and our own Exhibit.9 below) the correlation across the remaining six peak to peak averages is indeed positive, at +.3 (line () of Exhibit 3.)). If we continue to omit the 1981:3 peak, but substitute CBO potential output for GDP (line (3)) or ex-post interest rates for our real rate series (line ()), the correlation falls to -.1 or.17. Of course, such sensitivity to sample or data may not surprising when there are only six or seven data points. But that sensitivity remains even when we turn to the much longer time series available with annual data, although the baseline correlation is now positive. The averages computed from annual data in columns () and (6) in Exhibit 3.1 are plotted in Exhibit 3.3. A glance at the scatterplot in that exhibit reveals the positive correlation noted in the previous paragraph, at.3 it so happens (line () of Exhibit 3.). That correlation stays positive, with a value of.3 (line (6) of Exhibit 3.) if we drop 1981, the peak found anomalous in the analysis of quarterly data. However, for annual data, one s eyes are drawn not only to 1981 but also to points such as 1918, 19, 19 and 198. One can guess that the correlation may be sensitive to those points. To illustrate: Let us restore 1981, but remove the postwar 19 and 198 peaks, the correlation across the remaining 7 peak to peak averages is now negative, at -.3 (line (7)). If we instead drop the three peaks that reflect the Great Depression or World War II, the correlation is again positive at.9 (line (8)). The remaining rows of Exhibit 3. indicate that the annual data give results congruent with the quarterly data when the sample period is restricted (lines (9) and (1)) and that the annual results are not sensitive to the measure or timing aggregate output (Romer (1989) and year ahead data in lines (11) and (1)). We defer interpretation of sensitivity until we have also looked at backward moving averages of U.S. data, and cross-country results. Ten-year averages We consider -quarter (quarterly data) or 1-year (annual data) backwards moving averages. Ten years is an arbitrary window intended to be long enough to average out transient factors and presumably will lead to reasonable alignment between average GDP growth and growth of potential output. Using annual data, we also experimented with a -year window, finding results similar to those about to be presented. Numerical values of correlations are given in column (6) of Exhibit 3., with scatterplots presented in Exhibits 3.6 and 3.7. In Exhibit 3.6, the fourth quarter of each year is labeled with the last 1

16 two digits of the year. We see in Exhibit 3.6 that for quarterly data, the correlation between the - quarter averages is positive, at.39 it so happens (line (1) in Exhibit 3.). This is consistent with the quarterly peak-to-peak correlation of.3 when 1981:3 is removed (line () of Exhibit 3.)). The result is robust to use of ex-post real rates (line (3)). But, as is obvious from Exhibit 3.6, if we remove the post-7 points, which trace a path to the southwest, the correlation becomes negative, at -.19 (line ()). We see in Exhibit 3.7 that for annual data, the correlation between 1-year averages is negative, at -. it so happens (line () in Exhibit 3.). The postwar sample yields a positive correlation (line ()). Omitting , so that the Depression years fall out of the sample, turns the correlation positive (line (6)). The value of.31 is consistent with.9 figure in line (8) of peak-to-peak results in Exhibit 3., which also removed Depression and post-world War II years. 3D. Cross-country results Our GDP data come from the OECD. The source data were real, quarterly and seasonally adjusted. Sample coverage is dictated by our real rate series that were described in Section. Our real rate series for all countries had a shorter span than our GDP data. Our longest sample runs from 1971:-1:. We compute average values of GDP growth and of the real interest rate over samples of increasing size, beginning with roughly one decade (:1-1:, to be precise) and then move the start date backwards. The sample for averaging increases to approximately two (199:1-1:), then three (198:1-1:), and finally four (1971:-1:) decades. Some countries drop out of the sample as the start of the period for averaging moves back from to Exhibit 3.8 presents the resulting values. Exhibit 3.9 presents scatterplots of the data in Exhibit 3.9. Note that the scale of the :1-1: scatterplot is a little different than that of the other three scatterplots. As suggested by the scatterplots and confirmed by the numbers presented in the corr row of Exhibit 3.8, the correlation between average GDP growth and average real rates is positive in all four samples, and especially so in the year sample. However, the sign of the correlation is sensitive to inclusion of one or two data points. For example, in the sample, if Australia is omitted, the correlation turns negative. 3E. Summary and interpretation Both our U.S. and our international data yield a sign for the correlation between average GDP growth and the average real interest rate that is sensitive to sample, with correlations that are numerically small in almost all samples. 6 However, the theoretical presumption that there is a link between aggregate growth and real rates is very strong. One could make an argument to pay more attention to the samples that yield a positive correlation for example, dropping from the set 6 This is consistent with the formal econometric work of Clark and Kozicki (,p3), who conclude that the link between trend growth and the equilibrium real rate is quantitatively weak. 1

17 of full U.S. expansions or dropping from the 1-year U.S. averages and deduce that there is modest evidence of a modestly positive relationship between the two. For our purposes, we do not need to finely dice the results to lean either towards or against such an argument. Rather, we have two conclusions. First, if, indeed, we are headed for stagnation for supply side reasons (Gordon (1, 1)), any such slowdown should not be counted on to translate to a lower equilibrium rate over periods as short as a cycle or two or a decade. Second, the relation between average output growth and average real rates is so noisy that other factors play a large, indeed dominant, role in determination of average real rates. In the next section we take a narrative approach to sorting out some of these factors.. A narrative interpretation of historical real rates Much of the recent discussion of the equilibrium real rate has relied on a framework similar to the simple one sketched in equation (3.) above in which the major factor responsible for shifts in the IS curve is changes in the trend growth of the economy. Although this is a very common assumption, we found at best a weak link between trend growth and the equilibrium rate. More generally, theoretical models suggest trend growth is not the only factor that can shift the equilibrium rate. We noted above that the literature has considered varying the discount factor, the utility function and dropping the representative agent / complete markets paradigm. In connection with the last, we note that much research assumes that the interest rate that governs consumption decisions in equation (3.) and its generalizations for other utility functions is the risk-free real rate. However, as noted for example by Wieland (1), in an economy with financial frictions the rate at which households and firms borrow can differ substantially from the risk-free rate. The literature on the monetary transmission mechanism suggests the equilibrium real funds rate will also be sensitive to changes in the way monetary policy is transmitted through long term rates, credit availability, the exchange rate and other asset prices. The equilibrium rate will also be sensitive to sustained changes in regulatory or fiscal policy. Finally the typical models assume that changes in the trend inflation rate have no effect on the real interest rate, an assumption that again turns out to be hard to reconcile with the observed data. In this section we provide a narrative review of the history of the U.S. real interest rate to call attention to the important role of factors like the ones referenced in the preceding paragraph in determining changes in real rates over time. Since our focus is on the equilibrium rate we look at averages over various time periods, taking into account forces that may have shifted the equilibrium rate or caused the average to deviate from equilibrium at the time. Our ultimate goal is to understand whether similar forces are at play today. We take a particularly close look at one of the most popular narrative interpretations of recent developments. This is the view that the US economy is suffering from secular stagnation persistent weak demand and a near zero equilibrium rate. Our tentative conclusion from this exercise is that the equilibrium rate currently is between 1 and %, but there is 16

18 considerable uncertainty about how quickly rates will return to equilibrium and the degree of likely overshooting at the end of the business cycle. In this analysis we will be referring to two different measures of the real rate. The ex-ante real rate is the estimate of the ex-ante real rate developed in Section, which proxies inflation expectations using an autoregressive model for the GDP deflator for data after 193 or a CPI for data before 193 that is estimated over rolling windows. The static-expectations real rate is the measure that people in the markets and the Fed look at most often, calculated as the nominal interest rate minus the change in the core PCE deflator over the previous 1 months. Exhibit.1 repeats Exhibit.7, with the static-expectations real rate added on. As the Exhibit shows, the two real rate series align very closely. Over the 196 to 1 period, the GDP-based ex-ante real rate and the PCE-based staticexpectations real rate both average.1%. A. The real interest rate before World War II Exhibit. reproduces our long history ex-ante real rate series for the United States from the lower left panel of Exhibit.. The first thing that stands out in the real rate data is the notable downward shift in the real rate starting in the 193s. U.S. real rates averaged.% before World War I and only 1.3% since World War II. We found a similar drop for virtually every other country we looked at. Three factors may account for the secular decline in real rates. First, in the earliest periods the short rate may have not been truly risk free. As Reinhart and Rogoff (9) and others have documented, the period before World War II is laden with sovereign debt defaults. Almost all the defaults occurred when countries were in an emerging stage of development. In their data set, only Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Thailand and the U.S. never had an external debt default. In the U.S. case, however, bouts of high inflation in the American Revolution and Civil War and the exit from the gold standard in 1933 had an effect similar to default. Second, before the Great Depression financial markets were much less regulated. Interest rates, rather than credit and capital constraints did the work of equilibrating supply and demand. Third, and perhaps the most important explanation in the economic history literature is low life expectancy. From 18 to the average life expectancy for a year old American male rose from 8 to Shorter life expectancies in the past created two kinds of risks. First, absent a strong bequest motive, a short life expectancy should mean a high time value of money. You can t take it with you. Second, shorter life expectancy increases the risk of nonpayment. 8 7 Source: 8 Clark () argued that these developments account for a decline in interest rates beginning with the industrial revolution. 17

19 Regardless of the cause of the shift, this suggests a good deal of caution in trying to extrapolate from these early years to the current economy. History lesson #1: The equilibrium rate is sensitive to time preference and perceptions about the riskiness of government debt. History lesson #: Judging the equilibrium rate using long historical averages can be misleading. B. Financial repression ( ) Reinhart and Sbrancia (1) define financial repression as a regulatory effort to manage sovereign debt burdens that may include directed lending to government by captive domestic audiences (such as pension funds), explicit or implicit caps on interest rates, regulation of cross-border capital movements, and (generally) a tighter connection between government and banks. The period immediately following World War II was one of financial repression in many countries, including the U.S. If there are limited savings vehicles outside of regulated institutions and if those institutions are encouraged to lend to the government, this can lower the cost of funding government debt and the equilibrium rate. As noted by Reinhart and Rogoff (9, p. 16), During the post-world War II era, many governments repressed their financial markets, with low ceilings on deposit rates and high requirements for bank reserves, among other devices, such as directed credit and minimum requirements for holding government debt in pension and commercial bank portfolios.) Not surprisingly, real policy rates were very low for most of this period. Before the Fed Treasury Accord of 191, interest rates were capped at 3/8% for 9 day bills, 7/8 to 1 ¼% for 1-month certificates of indebtedness and ½% for Treasury bonds (Exhibit.3). The caps were maintained despite wild swings in inflation to as high as %. In the 193s and 19s the Fed also frequently used changes in reserve requirements as an instrument of monetary control. The Accord gave the Fed the freedom to raise interest rates, but a variety of interest rate caps and other restrictions continued to hold down the equilibrium rate into the 197s. When monetary policy was loose, rates fell; but when monetary policy tightened, a variety of ceilings became binding and the main restraint from monetary policy came from the quantity of credit rather than the price of credit. As Exhibit. shows, three-month T-bill rates rose above the Regulation Q deposit rate ceiling several times during this period. Indeed, many models of real activity at the time used dummy variables to capture a series of credit crunches during this period in particular, 1966, and By the late 197s the constraints had become less binding and interest rate ceilings were phased out from 198 to History lesson #3: The equilibrium real rate is sensitive to the degree of financial constraint imposed by regulations and the by the degree to which policy relies on quantity rather than price (interest rates) to manage aggregate demand. C. The inflation boom and bust ( ) 18

20 The era of financial repression overlapped with the Great Inflation. Inflation was very low and stable in the early 196s, but started to move higher in 196. Exhibit. shows the history of headline and core PCE inflation. In 1966 the Fed tried to put on the brakes by hiking rates. This caused disintermediation out of the mortgage market and a collapse in the housing sector. The Fed then backed off, marking the beginning of a dramatic surge in inflation. From 1971 to 1977 the ex-ante real funds rate averaged just.3%, reflecting both persistently easy policy and a series of inflation surprises for investors. From 198 to 1998 the inflation upcycle was completely reversed. PCE inflation fell back to 1%. Starting with Volcker the Fed created persistently high rates. During this period the bond vigilantes extracted their revenge, demanding persistently high real returns. Survey measures of inflation expectations also showed a persistent upward bias. Over the period the ex-ante real funds rate averaged.1%. With the Fed pushing inflation lower, interest rates probably were above their long-run equilibrium level during this period. Both inflation and real interest rates have been very low over the past two business cycles. Since 1998, year-over-year core PCE inflation has fluctuated in a narrow band of 1% to.%. Consumer surveys of inflation expectations dropped to about 3% in the mid-199s and have stayed there ever since (Exhibit.6). Surveys of economists, such as the Survey of Professional Forecasters have settled in right on top of the Fed s % PCE inflation target (also Exhibit.6). History lesson #: Trends up or down in inflation can influence the real interest rate for prolonged periods. Real rate averages that do not take this into account are poor proxies for the equilibrium rate. D. Real rates in delayed recoveries (1991-7) Both the and -7 cycles differed significantly from past recoveries. Historically, the economy comes roaring out of a recession and the bigger the recession the faster the bounce back. Exhibit.7 shows a simple spider chart of payroll employment indexed to the trough of the last 7 business cycles. 9 Note the slow initial rebound in 1991, (and in the current cycle). This initially weak recovery prompted considerable speculation about permanent damage to growth and permanently lower rates. In 1991 Greenspan argued that heavy debt, bad loans, and lending caution by banks were creating mile-per-hour headwinds for the economy. But by 1993 Greenspan was changing his tune: "The -miles-per-hour headwinds are probably down to 3 miles per hour. 1 The same thing happened in the 1-7 cycle: fear of terrorism, corporate governance scandals, the tech overhang and fear of war in the Middle East all appeared to weigh on growth. When the Iraq War ended without a major oil shock or terrorist event, GDP growth surged at a.8% annual rate in the second half of 3 and by the unemployment rate had dropped below %. 9 For expository purposes we have excluded the brief 198 cycle. Also note that earlier cycles look similar to the 197s and 198s cycles

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